-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: TEXT: 17 June 1962 NYHT Books Interview
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:15:57 -0700
From: Matthew Roth <mroth@MESSIAH.EDU>
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU

Now that the NYHT interview is posted, a comment:

I am puzzled by VN's statement that "The clearest revelation of personality
is to be found in the creative work in which a given individual indulges."
VN seems to be saying this in order to help readers interpret PF, but I
wonder if he also means this more generally. That is, would he want this
insight applied to Vladimir Nabokov, in addition to John Shade and V.
Botkin? The statement seems important in that it would appear to give
readers license to discover Shade's personality through a close reading of
his poem, a critical perspective that would have been anathema to the New
Critics who ruled the mid-20th Century.

Eliot, for instance, says "the poet has, not a 'personality' to express,
but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in
which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways.
Impressions and experiences which are important for the man may take no
place in the poetry, and those which become important in the poetry may
play quite a negligible part in the man, the personality. . . . Poetry is
not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the
expression of personality, but an escape from personality." ("Tradition and
the Individual Talent")

Given VN's statement above, which seems utterly contrary to Eliot's view,
might we say that Pale Fire presented to the audience of its day--perhaps
especially to the professional critic--an especially difficult task: the
rejection of the New Critical model, at least within the bounds of the
novel. (As I said, I'm interested in whether or not VN would have accepted
having the critical lens he proposes turned on himself.) And if there is
indeed a difference in how we are to read Shade, as opposed to VN, the
critical quandry becomes all the more complex and interesting, no?

Matt Roth

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